Summer Internship Series: Brad Fagan Edition

Editor’s Note: This post is the first of the summer by one of Shooting Touch’s summer interns. Brad Fagan is a rising senior at Roger Williams University majoring in journalism.

Brad Fagan

The summer is underway here at Shooting Touch and everyone in the office is working hard to give Shooting Touch that final push to really take us to the next level and make this company a globally recognized non-profit organization.

Shooting Touch has been making major strides overseas in Africa for years and the impact we are making is tangible. We have directly served over 11,000 individuals in seven different countries, built five full-sized basketball courts, and employed hundreds of citizens in those countries through court construction and training youth leaders as well as coaches. In Rwanda we have created the first organized youth basketball league for both boys and girls and provide crucial health education and HIV prevention tactics to the community.

Although the impact Shooting Touch has had internationally is great and will be continued, the main goal of this summer is to ramp up our Boston programming and become a major presence here in Boston. Shooting Touch already provides top-level camps and clinics to youth in the Boston area including its Preseason tune up clinic, which has drawn over 1300 individuals over the past few years.

Putting the finishing touches on one of our courts in Rwanda.

Shooting Touch also has provided over 350 scholarships to inner city youth to attend its annual Kids Camp with Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley, allowing kids who could not normally attend the camp to receive high level coaching that might not be possible otherwise. The camp this year takes place at Roxbury Latin and will be from July 13-16. It is looking like it will be a packed house again this year.

The main goal here at Shooting Touch this summer however is to build a foundation for our Getting Girls in the Game (G3) program. G3’s goal is to provide equal opportunity to basketball for inner city girls so they can enjoy all the benefits the game provides, like their male counterparts do. By making sports more accessible, young females have the chance to learn the foundational benefits of sports, such as leadership, confidence, self-esteem, and perseverance.

We were able to get G3 Boston started this spring, running pilot programs with the help of the Boston Center for Youth and Families and we are nothing but optimistic for what is to come this summer. G3 Boston’s summer program will run 4 sessions per week beginning July 6 and will continue through August 14.

More personally, this is my first summer here at Shooting Touch and so far the experience has been nothing but positive. My first experience with Shooting Touch was this spring when I worked as a photographer for our annual Spring Sports Conference. Prior to the conference, I had not even met everyone I would be working with this summer, but I was welcomed to the team with open arms. I was able to jump right into things and help document another successful Sports Conference put on by Shooting Touch, all while gaining knowledge from some of the brightest minds in the sports industry.

Photo I took from the Sports Conference.

Here in the office, I am part of the social media team and also create digital content for both the blog and the website. The work I’m doing is a major area of interest for me and, only three weeks in, I already feel like I have learned so much about the world of non-profits. I have submerged myself in social media strategies and am learning quickly how to properly tailor social media tools to a non-profit and only hope to gain more knowledge as the summer goes on.

The work environment here is very welcoming and it’s easy to see why these people work so well with children in under-resourced parts of the world. Lindsey and Patrick keep things light but have an unmatched work ethic and truly care about the kids all around the world that we are helping. Even only having been here for about a month I have found that working for a non-profit sincerely makes me feel as if I am helping people and making a difference in the world and for me there is no better feeling.